Chicago — Attorney General Lisa Madigan today said a Winnebago man was charged with disseminating child pornography as part of “Operation Glass House,” a statewide initiative to apprehend the most active offenders who download and trade child pornography online.

Patrick Daigle, 33, was charged in Winnebago County Circuit Court with three counts of dissemination of child pornography, which are Class X felonies punishable by up to six to 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Daigle is being held in the Winnebago County Jail with a bond of $500,000 and is scheduled to appear in court April 14.

“Child pornography is not a victimless crime,” Attorney General Madigan said. “Whenever an offender downloads or trades these horrific images, it perpetuates the sexual assault of children, causing further devastation to the victims. We will continue to be relentless in apprehending these offenders.”

Madigan’s investigators, with the assistance of the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department and the Winnebago County State’s Attorney’s Office, conducted a search of a residence in the 4200 block of Westlake Village Drive in the village of Winnebago and arrested Daigle after evidence of alleged child pornography was discovered. State’s Attorney Joseph Bruscato’s office will prosecute the case.

“The mission of the Winnebago County State’s Attorney’s Office is to seek justice for the victims of all crimes, most importantly, when those victims are the most vulnerable, like children,” said Bruscato. “It is our goal to prosecute individuals involved in these types of horrible and unspeakable crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”

“The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department will continue to work with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, the Winnebago County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Department of Homeland Security and all area law enforcement agencies to apprehend and prosecute individuals disseminating child pornography,” said Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana. “The Sheriff’s Department will not stand for the exploitation of children and will do everything possible to arrest those responsible for child pornography.

The public is reminded that the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

This is the 78th arrest since Madigan launched “Operation Glass House” in August 2010 to investigate the most active child pornography traders in Illinois. In 2010, the first year of the initiative, Madigan’s investigations revealed a disturbing trend of offenders trading extremely violent videos of young children being raped. As a result, Madigan’s office has focused on apprehending offenders who are seen trading and watching extremely violent videos involving children, including infants and toddlers.

Madigan’s office, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, runs the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, which investigates child exploitation crimes and trains law enforcement agencies. Since 2006, Madigan’s ICAC task force has been involved in 1,074 arrests of sexual predators. The task force has also provided Internet safety training and education to more than 500,975 parents, teachers and students and more than 19,472 law enforcement professionals.